DBS Bank
DBS Bank’s long-term commitment to India – one of its six core markets, including its home base in Singapore – has not wavered since it first set up shop in the country in 1994. On the contrary, it has only strengthened in recent years, with the firm converting its India operations into a wholly owned subsidiary in March 2019.
There were two reasons for that move, executed under the leadership of DBS India CEO Surojit Shome. The first was to meet the bank’s ambition of growing organically, through bulking up its small and medium-sized enterprise business and consumer lending operations. The aim was to give it the scale needed to become a full-service bank.
The second was driven by its long-term view of the Indian market, with the possibility of turning around distressed banks when necessary. In order for a foreign bank to be approached by the Reserve Bank of India to rescue an ailing lender, it must be a wholly owned subsidiary.
That was why DBS India, alongside a handful of other Indian banks, was called in by the central bank to save cash-strapped local lender Lakshmi Vilas Bank.